As Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael agree to set up another committee to manage the affairs of the rich, water charges and Irish Water have been used as a political football between them. In this centenary year it just goes to show that James Connolly got it right when he wrote: “If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the Green Flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain.

James Connolly is presented as the ideological inspiration of the majority of the politically committed in the 26-county Republic of Ireland. Of that state’s four main parties, only Fine Gael would deny him this role, tracing its roots to a compost of John Redmond and Michael Collins. Its rivals, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, and Labour, each describe themselves as the keeper of Connolly’s flame.

Do you, like me, subscribe to the view that Britain’s Conservatives are an unscrupulous lot, forever searching for new ways to make the rich even richer? With this in mind, and in spite of the absence of documentary proof, it strikes me that the intensely bitter dispute between junior doctors in Britain and the Tories’ secretary of state for health, Jeremy Hunt, is about more than just pay.

With the election now over, the issue of the Special Criminal Court has been largely forgotten—that is, unless you are stuck in one of Europe’s most disgusting prisons, namely Port Laoise, where “slopping out” is still the practice.

Capitalism has been in stagnation for decades. Economic growth has been sluggish, rarely rising above 2 per cent. Ireland, on the other hand, is once again the poster economy of capitalism. Having cast off the shameful remnants of the “Celtic Tiger” years and the financial crisis of 2008, Ireland is once again an economic powerhouse, with the growth in its gross domestic product (GDP)

“After all, the fight to avoid a catastrophic outcome to this crisis engendered by capitalism is the fight to safeguard the material conditions for survival with dignity of humankind . . . Socialism is not possible on a scorched Earth.”—Alexandre Costa.¹

Almost everybody in Ireland has at some point read Jonathan Swift’s book Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver (1726). No doubt readers of Socialist Voiceknow that at some levels Swift’s brilliant satire targets the relationship of Britain and its colony, Ireland.

As the unprecedented series of winter rainstorms indicate, Ireland is not immune to radical climate change. The increase in temperature of the South Atlantic, from which most of our rain comes, enhances evaporation from the ocean’s surface, hence the formation of rain-bearing clouds that are carried towards us by the prevailing winds.

Marx, quite correctly, didn’t leave a blueprint for socialism. His primary aim was to study and reveal the true workings of capitalism, the dominant socio-economic, political and cultural system, and how it reproduced itself. However, in doing this Marx did see how capitalism would evolve and ultimately give rise to a future society, socialism or communism, born out of and replacing capitalism through the logic of capitalism itself

[Report available here.] Britain appears to have accepted for now that it needs a soft brexit and is going to actively pursue a soft brexit in the next round of talks. The measures relating to the avoidance of a hard border are part of a ‘back-stop’ arrangement. They will only arise in the ‘absence of […]

I There is a lot more to class than accent or dialect. It is a power relation, the dynamics of which have shaped the contours of the Irish state since its establishment over 90 years ago in the courtyard of Dublin Castle. The economic interests of Ireland’s moneyed class have had an inordinate influence on […]

Ireland’s Economy: Radio Eireann talks on Ireland’s part in the Marshall Plan. Dublin: Stationery Office, 1949 [official/government publication] NLI: OPIE X 26.A Forward by the Taoiseach Mr. John A. Costello S.C., T.D. (pp.1-2) Since its inception European Economic Co-operation has done much towards restoring European economic solvency and has challenged the forces which have been […]

I start teaching a level one (introduction level) module in UCD Monday Week on the Financial Crisis. As always, I’ll post what I can here to share it with activists and progressives. This is a short audio I’m putting up for the students to give them a sense of where the module is coming from. […]